I was passing the doorman of the Biltmore, and I hated him at once, with his yellow braids and six feet of height and all that dignity, and now a black automobile drove to the kerb and a Â man got out. He looked rich; and then a woman got out, and she was beautiful, her fur was silver fox, and she was a song across the sidewalk and inside the swinging doors, and I thought oh boy for a little of that, just a day and a night of that, and she was a dream as I sat walking along, her perfume still in the wet morning air.

â€”Ask the Dust, page 3

How is it possible that I had never read, nor heard, nor dreamed that there existed a writer like John Fante until three weeks ago?